I don't believe that this God, who is his own father, is made of wine and bread, made woman out of a man's rib, and holds an eternal grudge over a fucking apple story, thus punishing everybody for it. As far as I can see, my god is the sun; it gave us life, it and if we don't do anything about, it will end it. Yet, I don't pray for the sun for it doesn't care for what I do; it just exists, and so do we.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

larger societal issues
OK - let's tackle them instead of dancing around them. The human race is collectively a bunch of selfish jerkwads who by and large conduct themselves deplorably. Many of them are overtly bad and steal, swear, commit violence, or any number of vile deeds. Others are jerks who lie, manipulate, abandon personal responsibility, and seek to undermine others for their own benefit. Still more are hypersensitive and hold grudges over petty things for years, gossip, or see personal affronts where none exist. Still others are poor saps who have had bad things happen to them and use it as an excuse to Be bad themselves. I could go on and on.
Since before human history, humans have been this way. Pretending that there is some sort of "solution" that will make the tendency of humans to be jackhats just go away is preposterously naive. The best you can do is try to MANAGE this tendency. Therefore the question becomes this... "What is the most statistically effective method that will reduce the human tendency to be a bunch of jerks?"
The answer is obvious - and probably antithetical to a lot of the people here in the Sift. But it is undeniable. MORALITY. Personal morality. And what is the best venue for acquiring a personal morality and philosophical ethic?
Church.
Yes. I said it. Everyone talks about wanting to 'make a better world by making better people', but there are only a few organizations that make that their sole objective. And yet these same organizations (that are the best hope we have for establishing a 'moral people') are routinely villified, attacked, denigrated, mocked, and regarded with disdain and hostility by the very people moaning that we need 'better people'.
I'm not saying churches/religions are perfect. People are still jerks, and will misappropriate ANY organization to justify their own jerkiness. Religions have suffered from that problem for a long time. It seems to me quite a baffling degree of blindness that we have people carping about the need for a "better world" and yet at the same time the same people attack, trash, and denigrate both the organizations and people that are specifically dedicated to that function.
I fully expect this opinion to be attacked in and of itself, ignoring the fact that I have freely admitted religion isn't perfect. I'm just saying that religion - Christianity most specifically - is entirely DESIGNED to instill in people the moral base some of you are pining for. Turn the other cheek. Love thy neighbor. Do good to them that despitefully use you. Honor father & mother. Do not steal, lie, or fool around - yadda yadda yadda. Should not this kind of sentiment be promoted, rather than attacked? Or - if not 'promoted' - shouldn't it at least be tolerated and respected rather than attacked?


it is the hypocrisy of the "church" that drives people away from that institution.
do as we say not as we do.
you pointed this out so lets try a different exercise.
lets change "church" to "community".
and instead of relying on religious dogma and doctrine lets instead rely on "personal responsibility".

i know many amazing christians who live by their religious faith.they teach by example and judge noone and then you have the people you mentioned hiding behind cherry picked scripture in order to admonish and judge those they disagree with and is a huuuuge reason why many ignore some of the great teachings.
hypocrisy is not a redeemable quality to admire and it harms the very pertinent message some are trying to convey.

i believe it all starts with parenting.
the way i see my job as a father is to instill in my boys integrity,character.
to have the courage to stand by their convictions and the humility to accept when they are wrong.
to realize the world does not revolve around them.
that choices have consequences and if they choose wrongly to accept those consequences without whining.

the question you seek to tackle is a societal one and will take far more than a comment thread to address but if you are refering to "church" as a community which could be a positive force in not only a growing childs development but also as a benefit for families in general.then i would tend to agree with you.
but many walked away from the religion due to the hypocrisy and in doing so lost that very vital part of raising a family.

thats my take on your comment...though it may appear off topic i agree with you that it is a vital component.

larger societal issues

OK - let's tackle them instead of dancing around them. The human race is collectively a bunch of selfish jerkwads who by and large conduct themselves deplorably. Many of them are overtly bad and steal, swear, commit violence, or any number of vile deeds. Others are jerks who lie, manipulate, abandon personal responsibility, and seek to undermine others for their own benefit. Still more are hypersensitive and hold grudges over petty things for years, gossip, or see personal affronts where none exist. Still others are poor saps who have had bad things happen to them and use it as an excuse to Be bad themselves. I could go on and on.

Since before human history, humans have been this way. Pretending that there is some sort of "solution" that will make the tendency of humans to be jackhats just go away is preposterously naive. The best you can do is try to MANAGE this tendency. Therefore the question becomes this... "What is the most statistically effective method that will reduce the human tendency to be a bunch of jerks?"

The answer is obvious - and probably antithetical to a lot of the people here in the Sift. But it is undeniable. MORALITY. Personal morality. And what is the best venue for acquiring a personal morality and philosophical ethic?

Church.

Yes. I said it. Everyone talks about wanting to 'make a better world by making better people', but there are only a few organizations that make that their sole objective. And yet these same organizations (that are the best hope we have for establishing a 'moral people') are routinely villified, attacked, denigrated, mocked, and regarded with disdain and hostility by the very people moaning that we need 'better people'.

I'm not saying churches/religions are perfect. People are still jerks, and will misappropriate ANY organization to justify their own jerkiness. Religions have suffered from that problem for a long time. It seems to me quite a baffling degree of blindness that we have people carping about the need for a "better world" and yet at the same time the same people attack, trash, and denigrate both the organizations and people that are specifically dedicated to that function.

I fully expect this opinion to be attacked in and of itself, ignoring the fact that I have freely admitted religion isn't perfect. I'm just saying that religion - Christianity most specifically - is entirely DESIGNED to instill in people the moral base some of you are pining for. Turn the other cheek. Love thy neighbor. Do good to them that despitefully use you. Honor father & mother. Do not steal, lie, or fool around - yadda yadda yadda. Should not this kind of sentiment be promoted, rather than attacked? Or - if not 'promoted' - shouldn't it at least be tolerated and respected rather than attacked?

No matter how well intentioned, I think military interventions nowadays that aim to dethrone an authoritarian regime are practically guaranteed to fail.

Modern combat is fought through surgical air strikes with a limited ground force. It minimizes invading state casualties but poor intelligence from limited local manpower inevitably leads to mass civilian casualties. This progressively undermines local support. Fostering a vibrant democracy or training a self sufficient military and police force, hell, let alone rebuilding the infrastructure from the initial invasion cannot be done quickly. As has been seen from Afghanistan especially, this allows insurgencies to organise and further air bombing simply adds to their recruitment numbers.

Removing totalitarianism also reveals long-held grudges and power imbalances such as how removing Saddam's minority Sunni Ba'ath Party fermented a civil war with the oppressed Shi'ite majority. Local revolutions on the other hand, without intervention create a sense of solidarity regardless of past differences. A foreign coup d'état does not.

States that have democracy thrust upon tend to squander them or relapse back into authoritarianism. Often this is from a lack of established and respectable candidates to choose from, haphazard transition to a market economy (e.g Russia) or a lack of consistent ground level demands from the people resulting in simple pandering by politicians to secure votes with no intentions of governance. Democracy is only able to work effectively when individuals with growing affluence over time begin to demand better infrastructure, services and generally representation of their interests.

Not to mention, especially in Africa, many countries were wished into existence by exiting colonial powers with no logical cultural, religious or ethnic links among them. There is simply no genuine sense of national unity. This is arguably what caused the violence in Kenya in 07-08 following the disputed election. Foreign interventions in ex-colonial countries also inevitably leads to the perception of renewed imperialism, not matter how pure actual intentions. This is why intervention in Zimbabwe to remove Mugabe is inconceivable unless it by the African Union, which is far too weak and unwilling. Even now, Mugabe has considerable support by his colonial independence credentials.

Other countries simply have never had a legitimate and effective government in generations. The Taliban did not so much rule Afghanistan as loosely impose Sha'ria law on individual tribes who otherwise had signficant autonomy. Now that representational democracy has been imposed, there is simply no willingness on the part of an individual tribe to work together to improve the livelihood of all, but merely their own people. Politicians and officials are not corrupt because they are immoral but because political survival means following this creed.

Point is, military interventions don't work in removing despotic governments simply because something can and will go wrong. The only place they are appropriate is preventing genocide or aggressor nations. NATO was correct to intervene in Kosovo, the UN was correct to prevent Iraqi aggression into Kuwait (ignoring Iraqi invasion of Iran was not). Intervention should have occurred in Rwanda and equally in Sudan.

The Powell Doctrine more or less sets out what I wrote above concisely. In short, intervention should occur only with mass popular local support, and be undertaken swiftly and effectively with overwhelming force with a clear exit strategy established.

Thanks to Bush though, the US is overstretched militarily and lacks the moral authority to incite other nations into intervening where necessary. More importantly it's lost the deterrence its successful interventions in Kosovo and Kuwait created.

>> ^bcglorf:

Hurray for anything bringing some attention to the situation over there, particularly in correctly referring to it as Burma and not the Myanmar moniker imposed by the military dictatorship.
RedSky said:
For countries that have essentially had institutionalised repression for a generation or more like North Korea and Burma, I honestly think that the best way forward is to encourage trade with some restrictions in the hope that some of it filters through to the people.
I completely agree with your feeling conflicted on how best to help the poor people imprisoned in these countries. Honestly, I think using a foreign military to remove the regime followed by a nation building program on the scale used in post war Germany and Japan is the best way forward. But no nation on Earth has any reason to spend that enormous amount of money and political good will on something that in essence gains them nothing in the end anyways.
I do dearly wish that when Burma was hit so bad by natural disasters a few years ago the world have reacted more appropriately. Instead of allowing the ruling military to refuse and block any aid from going in, the world should have come in by force with as many soldiers and weapons as needed to deliver the volunteered aid to the devastated areas by force, then simply withdrawn after the aid had been delivered and provided. Sure the military would come and take it all for themselves after anyways, but the people there could've seen for a few months that the outside world actually cares about them and would gladly treat them for better than the junta is. Maybe allowing a base of resistance and opposition to gain wider support.

>> ^direpickle:

No quiero morir.


comer más vegetales

Told you I was right.






http://videosift.com/video/TOOL-THE-GRUDGE-set-to-coinciding-anime

FUCKIN GIVER ! THROW STUFF AND BREAK STUFF !!!!!!!!!!!! THAT BASS LINE WILL NEVER LEAVE YOUR BODIES MOMENTUM.

http://videosift.com/video/TOOL-THE-GRUDGE-set-to-coinciding-anime

just fuckin rage out! smack some shit, break some shit and above and beyond all, enjoy yourself, circa 6+ minutes

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end.
Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Terrified of being wrong. Ultimatum prison cell.

Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end.
Saturn ascends, comes round again.
Saturn ascends, the one, the ten. Ignorant to the damage done.

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what you will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Wear the grudge like a crown. Desperate to control.
Unable to forgive. And sinking deeper.

Defining, confining, sinking deeper. Controlling, defining, and we're sinking deeper.

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Let's you choose what you will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent.

Saturn comes back around. Lifts you up like a child or
Drags you down like a stone to
Consume you till you choose to let this go.
Choose to let this go.

Give away the stone. Let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and fated
anchor.
Give away the stone. Let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges
into gold.

Let go.

http://videosift.com/video/TOOL-THE-GRUDGE-set-to-coinciding-anime

http://videosift.com/video/TOOL-THE-GRUDGE-set-to-coinciding-anime

*getting ready to put fist through wall *

I can't imagine why anyone would hold a grudge against the people who carved up their genitals as a child.

Eat hot death.

In reply to this comment by Tymbrwulf:
Someone likes to hold a grudge

You
Are too immature
To understand
Reality

In reply to this comment by Tymbrwulf:
Someone likes to hold a grudge

>> ^blankfist:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since May 3rd, 2010" href="http://videosift.com/member/Lawdeedaw">Lawdeedaw, but that's my point. Your take on public schools sounds like a monolithic one-size-fits-all system. That's what it means, it seems, when people say "it takes a society" to raise the kids. But does it? I thought it took the parents. They decided to have the children; I didn't. No other person was responsible for them having their kids. On that point, I don't have children, so don't you think I should have ZERO say in how a school system is structured?
You want "good, fair and harsh" discipline for those who fail, but what about parents (or teenager students for that matter) who don't want that type of discipline? Certainly we should have individual choice how our kids are disciplined, let alone how and what we teach them. Some parents believe in corporal punishment while others do not. Should one group's wishes outweigh the next?
But a public school system is a one-size-fits-all system where the larger group's wishes outweighs the smaller group's wishes. It's always been that way. When I was in school at an early age, teachers were allowed to paddle us, and the parents had no say in the matter. Was it fair that parents and children had to accept public school paddling without any recourse at all? What if a teacher had a grudge against a kid? What if a teacher got off on spanking children? What if the teacher left bruises and welts?
The reason I believe we should get rid of public school is because it's a terrible failure. And it doesn't address the individual needs of parents and children. What if a kid knew what they wanted to be, or at least had a strong interest in some field or industry (medicine, filmmaking, etc.), wouldn't it be cool if there were schools (or tutors) that catered to that without having to teach the horrible 'no kid left behind' one-size-fits-all curriculum passed down by the Dept. of Education? I think so.


Let me give a recent example of no-responsibility members of society fucking things up for parents. My brother does not want children nor can he even stand them. I have three children, all girls 3 and under. Well, my mom got remarried and her dictate was for all the children to have fun during the reception. Fine and well.

They were having a blast. They were screaming and running as kids do, and my brother got furious. Mom was cool with it, even if her wedding had been very formal. My brother said, "If I wanted fucking screaming, I would have went to god damn Jumberee." I said, bro, calm down and watch your tounge when you speak about my kids. "No, I fucking hate kids."

Now, knowing my brother was speaking directly about all children, including my own, I almost punched his face off his chin. That would have had me in cuffs and would have certainly affected how I raise my children and how my children would have saw me. His responsibility was to not attend the wedding if he had a problem with children---or he could have shut up. Period. But since he has a responsibility-free mindset, that it is not his problem but he can interject his opinion where it is not wanted or relevant, I have to suffer.

His mindset is, “Why should I not attend my mother’s wedding because of your kids? And why should I have to put up with their screaming?” Well, you don’t raise my kids, don’t love them or care for them, so stfu bro. Mom invited me and my kids, so put up with them. If you demand they change bro, then put in some fucking effort and teach them! You cannot have it both ways.

@Lawdeedaw, but that's my point. Your take on public schools sounds like a monolithic one-size-fits-all system. That's what it means, it seems, when people say "it takes a society" to raise the kids. But does it? I thought it took the parents. They decided to have the children; I didn't. No other person was responsible for them having their kids. On that point, I don't have children, so don't you think I should have ZERO say in how a school system is structured?

You want "good, fair and harsh" discipline for those who fail, but what about parents (or teenager students for that matter) who don't want that type of discipline? Certainly we should have individual choice how our kids are disciplined, let alone how and what we teach them. Some parents believe in corporal punishment while others do not. Should one group's wishes outweigh the next?

But a public school system is a one-size-fits-all system where the larger group's wishes outweighs the smaller group's wishes. It's always been that way. When I was in school at an early age, teachers were allowed to paddle us, and the parents had no say in the matter. Was it fair that parents and children had to accept public school paddling without any recourse at all? What if a teacher had a grudge against a kid? What if a teacher got off on spanking children? What if the teacher left bruises and welts?

The reason I believe we should get rid of public school is because it's a terrible failure. And it doesn't address the individual needs of parents and children. What if a kid knew what they wanted to be, or at least had a strong interest in some field or industry (medicine, filmmaking, etc.), wouldn't it be cool if there were schools (or tutors) that catered to that without having to teach the horrible 'no kid left behind' one-size-fits-all curriculum passed down by the Dept. of Education? I think so.